Tile Heritage Foundation

for research and preservation of ceramic surfaces

I Build the Tower

Here is something new! A feature-length documentary about the life and work of Simon (Sam) Rodia and the Watts Towers of South Central Los Angeles has recently become available on DVD produced by filmmaker Ed Landler and Brad Byer, Rodiaís great-nephew.

A jewel of a film, I Build the Tower, is magnificent to watch! This is the true story of Sam Rodia, the Italian immigrant who built the world-famous Watts Towers on a small residential lot in South Central Los Angeles over roughly 30 years beginning in the 1920s.

Watts Towers, designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1990, are now a component site of the California State Parks, managed by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

It is quite wonderful that the filmmakers were able to procure so much old film footage portraying Sam at work on his grand enterprise and to have conducted so many meaningful interviews with people who knew him in the neighborhoods where Sam spent most of his life in both northern and southern California.

As an added bonus the DVD features a complete 40-minute interview of R. Buckminster Fuller, excerpts of which appear in ìI Build the Tower. In this, his last interview filmed three months before his death in July 1983, Mr. Fuller provides an analysis of Rodiaís artistic and engineering genius and its significance in art history and the world.

Owning this film is a must for all who appreciate the significance of preserving the engineering feat represented by the Watts Towers as well as those who love and cherish the art, tile, mosaic and the whimsy found there. Kudos to the filmmakers!